{"id":26668117,"date":"2026-10-05T11:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T09:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/jimmy-doolittle-blind-flight-1929-first-instrument-landing-mitchel-field\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T11:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T09:03:12","slug":"jimmy-doolittle-blind-flight-1929-first-instrument-landing-mitchel-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/es\/jimmy-doolittle-blind-flight-1929-first-instrument-landing-mitchel-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Doolittle&#8217;s Blind Flight: The 1929 Landing Made on Instruments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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From that moment he could see nothing outside. He could see only a handful of instruments on the panel in front of him.<\/p>\n<p>He took off, flew a set course of about 15 miles, came back and landed on the same field, without once looking out. It was the first time anyone had flown a complete flight, from takeoff to landing, on instruments alone. Every airliner that lands in fog today owes something to those few minutes.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f6f9;border:1px solid #e2e7ee;padding:18px 22px;margin:22px 0 26px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:700;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px\"><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Date:<\/strong> 24 September 1929<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Place:<\/strong> Mitchel Field, Long Island, New York<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Pilot:<\/strong> Lt. James H. \"Jimmy\" Doolittle, under a hood in the rear cockpit<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Safety pilot:<\/strong> Lt. Benjamin S. Kelsey, in the front cockpit<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Aircraft:<\/strong> Consolidated NY-2 Husky trainer, NX7918<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Key instruments:<\/strong> Artificial horizon, directional gyro and a precision altimeter, from Elmer Sperry Jr. and Paul Kollsman<\/li><li style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Funded by:<\/strong> The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Why fog killed pilots<\/h2>\n<p>In the 1920s, cloud and fog were a death sentence for pilots who flew into them. The human balance system is simply not designed for flight: without a visible horizon, the inner ear happily reports that a steep, descending turn is straight and level flight. Pilots who lost sight of the ground tended to spiral into it, convinced to the end that their wings were level.<\/p>\n<p>Airlines and the air mail service could not run reliable schedules if every bank of fog grounded the fleet, or worse. The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, set up by the mining magnate Daniel Guggenheim to push American aviation forward, decided to tackle the problem head on. It created a Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field and borrowed one of the Army's most capable young test pilots to run it: Jimmy Doolittle.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6tkr3UaIkDk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#666;font-style:italic\">A documentary on the extraordinary life of Jimmy Doolittle, from racing pilot and engineer to wartime commander.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The instruments<\/h2>\n<p>Doolittle was more than a stick-and-rudder pilot. He held a doctorate in aeronautics from MIT, and he understood that the solution would come from better instruments, not braver pilots. Working with Elmer Sperry Jr., he helped develop a gyroscopic artificial horizon, which showed the aircraft's attitude against a fixed reference, and a directional gyro that held a steady heading where a magnetic compass would swing. Paul Kollsman, another Long Island engineer, provided a sensitive altimeter precise enough to fly an approach with.<\/p>\n<p>Radio aids, developed alongside, helped guide the aircraft back towards the field. Together, these instruments told the pilot what the outside world could not: which way was up, which way he was heading, how high he was and where the runway was.<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/jimmy-doolittle-portrait-usaf.jpg\" alt=\"Portrait of Jimmy Doolittle\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Jimmy Doolittle, the racing pilot and MIT-trained engineer who flew the first complete flight on instruments in 1929. US Air Force photo via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Under the hood<\/h2>\n<p>The aircraft was a Consolidated NY-2 Husky, a two-seat Navy trainer biplane, civil-registered NX7918. Doolittle sat in the rear cockpit, completely enclosed by a hood. In the front cockpit sat Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey as safety pilot, ready to take over if anything went wrong. He never needed to.<\/p>\n<p>Doolittle took off, flew out on a set course of about 15 miles, turned, came back and landed on Mitchel Field, all without seeing anything outside. The press was impressed. A contemporary magazine report, reproduced by the aviation history site This Day in Aviation, captured why this was different from earlier experiments.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;There has been 'blind flying' done in the past but never before in the history of aviation has any pilot taken off, circled, crossed, re-crossed the field, then landed only a short distance away from his starting point while flying under conditions resembling the densest fog.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Contemporary magazine report, 1929<\/strong> &mdash; as reproduced by This Day in Aviation<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<p>Harry Guggenheim, the president of the fund that paid for the work, was even more emphatic. He announced that the problem of fog flying had finally been cracked.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;the problem of fog-flying, one of aviation's greatest bugbears, had been solved at last.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Harry F. Guggenheim<\/strong> &mdash; President of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, as reported in 1929<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">From Mitchel Field to every cockpit<\/h2>\n<p>It was not quite solved, of course. It took years more work, better radio aids and a great deal of training before instrument flying became routine, and the instrument landing systems that guide modern airliners only matured after the Second World War. But the principle had been proved. A pilot who trusted good instruments over his own senses could fly, navigate and land without seeing the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Doolittle went on to many other things: air racing records, the 1942 raid on Tokyo that bears his name, and command of the Eighth Air Force in Europe. Yet among aviators he is also remembered for this September day in 1929, when a man under a canvas hood showed that the sky did not have to be clear to be flown.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZpElsS8Nz0g\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#666;font-style:italic\">Biographics on the life and career of Jimmy Doolittle.<\/p>\n<p>Instrument pioneers like Doolittle are the reason modern pilots train for hours \"under the hood\" before they are allowed to fly in cloud.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BWj-M-CXv48\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<p style=\"font-size:14px;color:#666;font-style:italic\">A short explainer on Doolittle's first instrument flight in 1929.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sources: Wikipedia (Jimmy Doolittle), This Day in Aviation, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Biographics<\/em><\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\n\n\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>What was Jimmy Doolittle's blind flight?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">On 24 September 1929, Jimmy Doolittle took off, flew a set course of about 15 miles and landed at Mitchel Field, New York, entirely on instruments, with his cockpit covered by a hood. It was the first complete flight, from takeoff to landing, made without any outside visual reference.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What aircraft did Doolittle use for the first blind flight?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Doolittle flew a Consolidated NY-2 Husky, a two-seat biplane trainer, civil-registered NX7918. He sat under a hood in the rear cockpit, while Lieutenant Benjamin Kelsey sat in the front cockpit as a safety pilot but did not need to intervene.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Which instruments made blind flight possible in 1929?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The key instruments were a gyroscopic artificial horizon and a directional gyro developed with Elmer Sperry Jr., and a precision altimeter from Paul Kollsman, combined with radio navigation to guide the aircraft back to the field.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Who paid for Doolittle's blind flying experiments?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The work was funded by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics, which set up a Full Flight Laboratory at Mitchel Field on Long Island. Its president, Harry Guggenheim, announced after the flight that the problem of fog flying had been solved.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why was flying in fog so dangerous before instruments?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Without a visible horizon, the human inner ear gives false signals about which way is up, so pilots in cloud or fog often entered descending spirals while believing they were level. Gyroscopic instruments gave pilots a reliable reference that did not depend on their senses.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What else is Jimmy Doolittle known for?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Jimmy Doolittle was also a record-setting racing pilot, an MIT-trained aeronautical engineer, the leader of the April 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, and the commander of the Eighth Air Force in Europe during the Second World War.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was Jimmy Doolittle's blind flight?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"On 24 September 1929, Jimmy Doolittle took off, flew a set course of about 15 miles and landed at Mitchel Field, New York, entirely on instruments, with his cockpit covered by a hood. 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From that moment he could see nothing outside. He could see only a handful of instruments on the panel in front of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":26666565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26668117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jimmy Doolittle&#039;s Blind Flight of 1929 | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On 24 September 1929 Jimmy Doolittle took off, flew and landed under a hood using instruments alone. 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